Showing Posts For Daulnay.4971:
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“The problem is based on gw2spidy at the time of this posting less than 30% of all crafted items (including components) can be sold for a profit over the cost of materials to make them.”
The market is dynamic. Profitability of items changes from day to day (minute to minute, really). Some items or components are never profitable because people use them to rapidly skill up, and then dump them. Those components help the rest of us make bigger profits (since we can buy them below mfg cost).
To make the point clearer, since lots of people still don’t get it.
Ore A vendors for 5c.
Demand for Ore A is low, so the price drops to 6c on the TP.
Buy Ore A for 6c, sell resulting ingot for 10c.
Nearly free XP, really fast, hurray!Has this sunk in yet?
P.S., I remember buying a lot of Iron Ore for 3 or 4c off the TP, shortly after launch. It vendors for 3c, good thing the ingot didn’t go for 6c!
So, basically, you buy smth for 12c and then vendor it for 10c. Yeah, that’’s economically sound in every way possible. Also, how selling 2 ores for 10c is in any way different from selling 1 ingot for 10c is beyond me.
The exp part was already fully discussed by those who didn’t fail at reading comprehension. It’s the “gold out of thin air”-part that makes you look stupid.
And, yes, your lack of basic understanding has become more than apparent.
It’s the XP per ingot, at a cost of 2c, that is the problem. If you craft ingots for xp, we want them to stay in the economy, not put on the vendor.
snip
Yes, it is pretty clear. Not to you, obviously. So, I’ll make it simpler.
Ore A vendors for 5c.
2 x Ore A gives you Ingot A.
Ingot A vendors for 5c.
OP is asking how come Ingot A doesn’t vendor for 10c.It was already explained(about 10 times) exactly what he means and exactly why he’s wrong. Yet, you decided to hop on the misunderstanding bandwagon with a “gold out of thin air” theory.
Now, keep reading this until it sinks in. Got it? Good.
To make the point clearer, since lots of people still don’t get it.
Ore A vendors for 5c.
Demand for Ore A is low, so the price drops to 6c on the TP.
Buy Ore A for 6c, sell resulting ingot for 10c.
Nearly free XP, really fast, hurray!
Has this sunk in yet?
P.S., I remember buying a lot of Iron Ore for 3 or 4c off the TP, shortly after launch. It vendors for 3c, good thing the ingot didn’t go for 6c!
(edited by Daulnay.4971)
Crafting in GW2, as implemented, is not aimed at being a money making activity.
Your premise is false. I make money crafting in GW2, and have been able to for over a month. It is a competitive activity, and takes a bit of skill and effort because the markets are dynamic and you have to search a bit to find the profitable items.
Of course not, why should people expect to make money for pressing 10 buttons to craft an item? The buyer has to work for his money why would he part with it for something that involves no work? Real craftsmen spends hours and hours of their work, skilled, hard trained work, creating their products. Were this simulated by the game, you’d probably have to spend hours of work playing some kind of minigame to create quality products. However, SimSmith 3.0 would likely involve standing at a crafting station for hours doing minigames, which I expect would not be particularly attractive to most players – after all, I have yet to hear of an actual SimSmith 3.0 game in existence.
Actually, it’s called “A Tale in the Desert”, and it’s a non-combat MMO which attracts a niche crowd. It’s been around for years.
Making crafting in GW2 profitable would be a big issue.
Again, crafting in GW2 is profitable. It is not a ‘push 10 buttons and make money’ activity, it involves constantly checking markets, finding the profitable thing to make, and making it. However, it is pretty profitable; I have made enough gold to swap for the gems to buy a character slot, a bag slot, and two vault slots. Obviously not worth it compared to a real job, but hey, it’s fun (at least for me). I probably spend way more time per gold doing this than I would make farming in Orr, but fun, not efficiency, is the point of playing a game.
So crafting in GW2 is just fine, at least for some of us. I have maxed out 5 crafts, and one profession (and quit adventuring with that ranger in favor of crafting more).
What would be possible would be implementing an alternative way of acquiring resources by making them crafting themed. I could easily see a mine themed dungeon where hard work would be put into acquiring raw materials. Puzzles to determine profitable ores among junk. Actually pushing mining wagons loaded with ore to the surface. Preventing cave-ins as games of skill and speed, carrying timber and fixing the right beams at the right time. Things like that. I really think it could be made fun.
This is an excellent idea. Much better than just running around nodes, and much less able to be botted.
It’s still possible to make money crafting up., here’s an example, at 8:58 am, PST:
There is an offer on the TP to buy rare Hearty Gladiator Pauldrons for 50s. The small scales to make them cost 30s if you buy them straight up, instead of making an offer at a lower price. The other materials are trivial, less than 10s total for wool, thread, and iron.
Tomorrow, it will be something else. Learn to use the market, and calculate profit margin. Buy with offers, and be patient. Use intermediate parts when people have dumped them from skilling up. You can have level 50 characters with two crafts at level 400, without help from a level 80 character or farming.
Right now its absurdly expensive to level crafts due to the supply of items running low. I would wait until it stabilizing before deciding to level up crafts.
TL:DR – You can make money or at least get close to break even once you can get rare recipes at crafting level 35. Beyond that point, it has been possible to craft way past your character’s adventure level without an outside source of materials.
I make money leveling up my crafting. You need a certain amount of money to get started, you need to get to crafting level 35, and you need to be willing to spend karma on the rare recipes. But from level 35 on up, you can sit in Lion’s Arch, use materials bought on the TP, and get your crafting to 400. The only thing that will force you to adventure is the Karma to buy rare recipes.
However, it is not possible to do a formula. You have to look at the market, buy things as cheaply as possible, and be patient. The market changes from hour to hour, and sometimes there just aren’t things you can make.
(At least, it was possible last week, for weapons. I have not been making anything for the L35 market more recently.)
(edited by Daulnay.4971)
Inb4 you’re attacked ad hominem for daring to point out the fact there is no craftables that sustain in terms of demand
That isn’t a problem with the game design, it’s a characteristic of a market economy. In an efficient, competitive market economy, supply rises to meet demand so much that there is no extra profit in the activity (only enough to sustain the current level of production).
A market economy is dynamic, and you will not be able to find one thing that you can consistently make and profit on. If you can, the market isn’t functioning properly.
You can profit from crafting now, but it takes work. Here’s the explanation (in another thread):
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/crafting/How-can-crafting-be-made-profitable/672289
Oi, you can level up on less than a gold, but using a bunch of karma (for rare recipes), like CassieGold said. And maybe even make money (I did). However, it will take effort and time, because you must watch the markets, and figure out the lowest costs (which change).
A few tips:
Always buy with an offer, rather than at the sellers’ price. Have patience, offers take time to get filled.
Many intermediate parts sell for much less than they cost to manufacture, because they’re quick and comparatively cheap to level up on. Use those instead of making your own parts for discovery.
A good part of your levelling can be made discovering rares. Those are what drive the prices for fine drops (claws, fangs, blood, etc), and the rares sell for over or near manufacturing costs. If you watch markets closely, you can even find quite profitable ones (but you have to get in before the market-watching bots update and everyone floods in when the results show up on their websites).
You can make money crafting up, even. However, it takes some skill and time, you have to watch markets. Levelling tailor from 200 to 400, I made about 2 gold. Overall, I have all 3 weaponsmaking skills and 2 of 3 armorcrafting skills, and made enough to buy a character slot, a bag slot, and a vault slot.
(edited by Daulnay.4971)
The topic is still about vendoring items and not player trades.
Buried somewhere towards the end of that post was a comment on why they’re not going to remove the XP gain from crafting — it will force the people who want to just craft into PvE or PvP. Being able to level up from just crafting was one of the selling points of the game, so it won’t get removed.
If they’re not going to remove XP, then they have to balance PvP, PvE, and crafting for rewards/time. Crafting is pretty fast, they would have to slow crafting down in order to balance an increase in the gold reward, since they are not going to lower xp.
Unless they do something clever, like turning crafting into minigames, increasing time will just make it a lot more boring and grindy. That goes against their whole design philosophy and one of the major selling points. It’s not gonna happen.
You can make money crafting up. It’s not even hard, but it’s also not formulaic. You see, you are competing with everyone else who is trying to make money (except the people who are just grinding up).
Here’s my very long answer to this thread, in a similar thread: http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/crafting/How-can-crafting-be-made-profitable/first#post672289
OT:
for the joy and xp of crafting an item that, in most cases, they didn’t really need to begin with.
And, if I’m being honest, I’m one of them. I’ve happily paid some stranger to farm crafting mats for me via the TP just to turn those mats into an item that I then vendored at a loss.
If you really find joy from just crafting, you might want to check out the MMO game Istaria. It has one of the best crafting systems I’ve seen so far (and no, you can’t make money crafting there, not really.)(and forgive the graphics, it’s an old game.)
Here are a few highlights from their crafting system:
— In addition to the usual stuff like weapons, armor, potions, and the like, you can craft buildings, ornamental plants, bridges, spells, dragon lairs, storage, and best of all, crafting machinery (for your own plot of land).
— Spells have to be learned from a player-crafted item, which can be customized by the crafter. You have to learn a possible customization before you can craft it, and each customization takes a particular drop or two. For example, if you have a basic flame bolt spell formula, you can customize it to add range, damage, crit damage, accuracy, or a couple other things (but not all at the same time).
— Gathering and Crafting require tools, which can be customized to help you gather or craft.
— Increasing skill increases the efficiency of your crafting and gathering. You gather more, or use less materials as you craft. It caps out at a certain point (although not at the very top, only for each item or tier). Your skill level can be boosted by customized tools, armor, potions (for gathering) and player-made crafting stations (for crafting).
— Weapons and armor can also be customized as you craft them. However, it’s more like a system that allows multiple runes/sigils that are locked in at craft time.
snip
Adding a quality rating to items might help in the middle levels, but would it have much effect on stuff created by 400-level crafters?
DAOC had critical successes and quality ratings. Based on that, I’d say it doesn’t help much of anywhere. The only stuff people wanted to buy was the perfect stuff, even at mid levels.
It would help to be able to dye armor before you sell it. Then you could make a profit off your ability to make nice color combinations and your good personal dye selection.
Those guides are simple and straightforward. They are also big money sinks, since you can actually make money crafting up. How?
You have to be patient. You have to be flexible. You have to be able to do math in your head, or use a spreadsheet, or both.
Patient: Like any good business, you need to buy low. Never make what you can buy for less. That means you need to figure out what raw materials cost, and then whether it’s cheaper to buy a given part or make it from scratch. Surprisingly often, the answer is to buy it. So what does this have to do with patience?
To buy low, you have to make offers on the TP, and wait for them to fill. Fortunately, it costs nothing to make an offer, so you can make and change them. I usually buy some of the item parts I need, as well as the insignias/inscriptions.
Flexible: The GW2 markets are dynamic, prices change as people notice shortages and fill them. What was profitable or cheap this morning might not be by afternoon. So you can’t simply make the same thing over and over to skill up at a profit. (Note, part of the time you skill up on stuff you cannot sell for a profit, so you don’t have to be flexible there. When you skill up by inventing Fine and Masterwork items, your selling price doesn’t change — it’s usually the vendor price. You do want to check, though. A few of those items do sell far enough above vendor price to be worth putting on the TP. ) When you are inventing Fine and Masterwork items, the flexibility comes in making or buying the insignia that are the least expensive, and making the items that cost the least. You’ll end up with a mixture that changes depending on the current market for the ‘ooky bits’ — the fine quality drops like bone, blood, and venom. Don’t forget to look at the market prices of plated inscriptions, they have been available at less than raw materials cost (make an offer).
Math: It helps a lot to be able to calculate 15% and do subtraction in your head. For intermediate goods, it helps you figure out which way the market is moving, how efficient it is, and how much demand there is for things. Some items have thin markets with little trading, others are competitive and efficient.
Ah, forgot to mention how you actually make money. I’ve covered that pretty well here: http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/crafting/How-can-crafting-be-made-profitable/first#post672289
(edited by Moderator)
One other thing about profitable crafting. It takes time. Lots of time! Holy cow it takes so much time! First I have to look at the buy/sell spread for each crafting mat. Then I have to look at the buy/sell spread for the finished product. Usually it a loser. Then I have to look at the buy/sell spread for every intermediate product to see if there’s an opportunity for savings there. Then I have to reanalyze the buy/sell spread of the finished product to estimate how long it’ll take to sell and decide if I’m better off putting my cash elsewhere. Over and over again. And I haven’t even gotten to all the various karma or skillpoint to gold conversions that have to be done for some recipes!
It’s not quite that bad! Mostly, you need the ability to calculate 15% in your head, at least for the intermediate products. Lots of the parts use identical combinations of materials, so those calculations aren’t even so bad. Also too, use a spreadsheet, and just plug in your estimate of the raw materials prices. Then you only have to compare market prices to what you spreadsheet says they should cost based on raw materials.
daulnay, im not completely disagreeing with you here, but what you are making money off of here, is not so much crafting as much as playing the market. You make money of being a superior merchant, and use crafting as one of the tools.
If you want to make money in a market economy, you have to do finance. Period. If you don’t, someone else will, they’ll undercut your prices, and you won’t make money. That means you have to look for cheap sources of raw materials or intermediate materials and you have to adapt to market conditions as they change. You have to avoid making items that are in oversupply, and make the ones that are not.
That is not being a merchant. Being a merchant means buying and selling goods in order to make a profit — which you can also do in GW2.
So possibly what they could also do… (i dont think they would do this though) is add a quality rating to items, the better its crafted (can be decided by number of materials, crafter level, special crafting goals achieved or whatever) effects its durability to repair cost.
Excellent idea!! I hope devs see this and adopt it.
ANet could make some crafting more like real-world handcrafting and less like manufacturing. Other parts of the game require actual skill on the player’s part, why not crafting? The MMO “A Tale in the Desert” does this for some crafts, making the craft a kind of minigame.
This would be the only way I could see critical successes work as a mechanism for crafting profitability — higher skill at the minigame would improve your chance of critical success. It should give feedback on how you were doing through the minigame, reacting to mistakes or successes.
Because PvP balance is an issue, critical success should lower raw material use rather than improve stats. The key to profitability would be mastery of the minigame.
Different crafts might have different minigames, some might be twitch/reaction games, some kind of DDR or platforming, some might be mental puzzles.
—continued—
“Not to mention the fact that as a player of a video game, I have no cost of living to consider.”and “If my average spend per day in game is about 20s for repairs & WP’s, if I sell something I make for 1g that pays for 5 days worth of my daily cost of living.”
ANet has done an impressive job of linking the in-game economy to real world money. Gold in the game can be traded for gems, which can be traded for bag slots, character slots, vault slots, and a host of other things. As of 11:35 PST on 11/08/2012, 6g 40s will by you $10.00 U.S. in gems, the 800 gems necessary for a new character slot.
The money you leave on the table when you don’t watch how you sell stuff on the GW2 market has a very real cost for you (if you would ever buy gems for real cash). I estimate that I’ve saved myself $20 by making money crafting (which is cash for having fun, can’t fault that!). Bought a character slot, bag slots, and vault space. (I hope I have not spoiled anyone’s fun by removing the illusion that this is a fictional, not a real, economy. )
[ Side note: the economies in GW2, WoW, EVE Online and many other MMOs are actually part of the real world economy. It’s a fascinating RW development — online economies are quite large, and the economic activities we indulge in here do replace economic activities we otherwise might be doing in meatspace. Crafting, especially. Gold farming is one sign of the fact, and has become a surprisingly large ( 3 billion) industry. Yes, with a B. See the report “Knowledge Map of the Virtual Economy” published by the World Bank/International Bank for Reconstruction and Development in April 2011. ]
(edited by Daulnay.4971)
I’ve played MMOs since Asheron’s Call, and one of my passions is crafting and economics. I earned an economics undergraduate degree, and worked afterward as a financial analyst and as an accountant. (This stuff has fascinated me, both as a frivolous past-time and in real world life, both the theory and the nuts and bolts.)
TL,DR; Crafting is actually working as well as it theoretically can. There are some changes that can be made to improve crafting, though the things suggested so far will mostly not help.
"crafting, in GW2, just isn’t a viable way to make money."
False premise. I do make money crafting, and think you would make money if you crafted the same way. You may not enjoy it then, it might be difficult for you to make money crafting the way you like.
1. In economic theory, markets with good information are efficient. Opportunities to make more than a modest profit will be short-lived. That’s mainly true here -- a given item will not remain profitable for very long. I’ve made a decent gold by watching many markets, and making one or two items when I see short supply. A little later the shortage appears on the market tracking websites, the shortage disappears, and so does profit. Usually, I can sell my item before that happens, taking only a small loss when it does not.
We expect this from an efficient market economy with good information -- small or fleeting profits. Really profitable areas will disappear quickly. That’s just how a good market works.
Markets are dynamic. You won’t make a good amount of gold unless you are willing to be nimble and constantly search for market opportunities. Opportunities are not going to wait for you to get off of work, or for you to sleep. Your competitors in the market are nimble, and are constantly watching the shifts in the market. If this environment doesn’t suit you, then you shouldn’t expect to craft for money.
2. Parts of the GW2 market are not yet efficient. There are lots of places to save or make money while leveling up that are ignored. People leveling up may go for speed, and make batches of the least expensive thing. They dump the result on the market at a big loss, so those things (usually intermediate pieces that take one or two basic mats) are for sale far below manufacturing cost. This has persisted for a couple weeks, at most of the levels of the armor/weapons crafts (I don’t do jewelry), so the market definitely isn’t all working smoothly. As players recognize this, raw materials prices will drop and the dumped items will disappear.
3. Have you noticed that, as you level up, there is no market for fine and masterpiece items? A key raw material, the fine drop (bone, totem, etc), gets used to make rare items. The rare item market can be modestly profitable, and it is demand from that market that drives fine drop prices. Like many profitable markets in the real world, there’s a barrier to entry -- the recipes to make the rare part cost karma.
This is one place that ANet could put in a fix. Add fine/masterwork recipes that give a bonus combination not available from drops or similar level rares, or that uses a mix of fine drops rather than 3 or 8 of the same kind.
Let’s cover not-so-good suggestions next:
"1. Remove exp gain from crafting so people are crafting for the purpose of having access to the high end crafted gear."
ANet tries to balance XP/gold/time spent between PvP, PvE, and crafting. Taking XP off the reward side for crafting will increase the gold reward, but it will force PvE onto the people who want to mainly craft. That would be bad for the market success of the game.
"2. Make crafting more time consuming so people cant craft max gear after 1-2 hours of grinding the lower lvls."
A big goal of the game design is to remove or lessen grinding. ANet abandon one of their big selling points? Won’t happen.
"3. Add a fail chance to crafting where u can loose one of the components used for failing to craft said item."
This will raise the cost of crafting items, overall, but won’t change the profitability in any appreciable way. (study the concept of expected value in probability theory).
"4. Critical Crafting chance which gives the item 2 upgrade slots instead of one or some extra visual on the item (or for food multiple use for one item, extended time or better stats)."
This tends to introduce grinding; players generally don’t want to buy the non-critical items. Especially true in PvP games, where things like slots matter. An extra visual or alternate skin might be workable.
TL,DR; The TP is an inefficient market, and you can save significant amounts of silver by finding the inefficient places (guidelines below).
You don’t always need to gather or buy the rare bits in order to do discovery — some players make insignia to level up, and put them on the market at a loss. You can buy those insignia in order to level up (make an offer rather than directly buying). While you won’t usually be able to sell the result at a profit, you will cut your loss. Likewise, you can buy some of the intermediate pieces at a steep discount from their manufacturing cost, saving even more. Those intermediate pieces are usually the ones that cost the least to make ( one leather, a single metal bar) and not the ones that require something from the trainer (anything that uses spools of thread).
It’s possible to make money crafting, but you have to find things most people are not doing. In order to figure that out, look at the crafting guides. Then don’t follow them, at least if you want to make money.
Many people craft the least expensive thing in order to level their craft up, and dump them on the TP at a loss. So certain intermediate parts can be ordered for much less than it would take you to craft them from purchased raw materials. Also, fine and masterwork insignias and inscriptions can often be ordered at a discount from raw materials costs. You will have to have patience while you wait for the order to be filled, but the savings is worth it.
Take your purchased parts and do discovery. Unfortunately, the fine and masterwork items are made by everyone and dumped, so it’s rare to be able to sell any for more than vendor price.
So where can you make money? Many people follow database sites like gw2spidy to figure out what is profitable. You will have to be nimble and actively reacting to the market, so that you can jump in and sell before the whole internet piles on. You will repeatedly see a nice profitable item get flooded with more copies a couple hours after you notice it, each one undercutting the next by a copper. Be prepared to reprice if your item does not move in half a day (unless it looks like you can wait out the price dip). Corollary is, you won’t make much profit on a whole bunch of the same item.
You can get a feel for the supply/demand balance by looking at the number and pricing of offers to buy and sell. Some items have lopsided markets, either on the demand or supply side. Some are more even, and you can see an ebb and flow in some if you watch that market.
A further thing to look at is the player level curve, as reflected in raw materials pricing. Right now, raw materials are peaking in the third tier, and the fourth tier is starting to rise. The first tier was very high at the beginning of the game, with its materials going for 7-10 times those of the comparable second tier items. That bulge is gradually going up the tiers, and spreading out.
If you look carefully, you’ll see some components and insignias selling for below what it would cost to make them (using the highest buy offer for raw material prices, component prices, and insignia prices). If the component is over 15% lower, just buy the component from the TP, by making an offer at just over the current buy offer. It may take a while for the order to fill, but you can always cancel it at no loss if you get outbid.
Making buy offers takes patience, but it pays off quite a lot in savings.
Once you can buy your first rare insignia from the tailor master, you’ll be able to craft rare items and (mostly) break even or make a small profit.
Rastamon hits the high points: make rare items to sell, not masterwork or fine. Research the market beforehand. At this point, you don’t have to be as thorough as he suggests — I am not — and you can still make a profit — I do.
The one trick he misses is to buy components on the TP when they’re dumped at below cost. Many are, because people make piles of intermediate parts to level up instead of using discovery. Some are substantially below what they’d cost to make from raw materials, which means you can produce items with them and sell at near raw material cost for a nice profit.
One helpful predictor of future prices is figuring out which level most of the demand is at. For instance, right now it’s high in the seasoned wood/darksteel tier, compared to the next two tiers up.
(edited by Daulnay.4971)
On #1 and #2 : I do not have a better guide, but I have suggestions for lowering the amount spent to gain.
Use the guide as a indication of which way to head, but don’t follow it closely. In particular:
A. Rather than making the armor parts, buy them from the TP when the parts on offer are less expensive than the cost of buying the ore to make them.
This will require a little patience, but many of the parts you will need will be significantly less expensive than their ore cost, because many players are crafting up by making scads of parts and dumping them on the market below cost. Why patience? Because you don’t want to buy immediately at the buy price, but instead want to make an offer. Usually, an offer for these parts is much less than the buy price, but you will have to wait for you offer to get filled. It may take a day, even.
B. Buy already-made insignias from the TP. Again, these are often much less expensive than buying the corresponding materials and making insignias yourself. Buy a few of the cheapest kinds, rather than the ones the guide specifies. The armor you make will not sell for any more than vendor value, and usually less when the TP fees are taken into account, plan to vendor it.
C. Because you are not making the intermediate parts or the insignias, you will have to invent a couple more pieces of armor. Instead of buying 10 insignias, buy 12. Again, make an offer and use patience.
D. When you reach the right levels, spend a little Karma and buy a recipe or two for rare insignias. Buy the materials to make the rare insignias yourself — unlike the fine and masterwork ones, you won’t find rare insignias for sale at less than cost. You should be able to sell the rare armor you make with these for a small profit, and maybe even a moderate one.
Rather than make everything from scratch, figure out which parts are being dumped on the market by people who are grind-levelling. Buy and use those parts to do your experimentation, saving a substantial amount of money. Patience is necessary, though…
Definitely take a look at the recipes your master crafter offers in exchange for Karma. They make the best armor/weapon/jewelry you can craft while you are leveling up, Rare (yellow) gear, and a few of them can even be crafted for sale (profit).
is there any way to convert karma into gold that doesn't get you banned?
in Crafting
Posted by: Daulnay.4971
Most of my Karma has gone to the Rare item recipes on the second/third tab of the Master crafters. But I like crafting, and have actually been able to make money at it.
Over the last 3 days I made 3 gold doing nothing but crafting with two level 30-ish alts who went from 220ish to 350 in four crafts. A big part of the fun was figuring out what would be profitable and sell, and what would not. The money is there to be made.
As one person said, specific components are sometimes available at a substantial discount from market. This is especially true of things that people make in bulk to level up. It sometimes takes patience, too – I almost never buy from the TP at the asked price, and instead put in a bid. Sometimes, my bid doesn’t get filled, so I rebid, or just make the component from raw materials.
As Dee Jay said, there’s an opportunity cost. You have to enjoy the process of figuring out where the profit is, and if you don’t enjoy it you’re better off playing in another part of the game.
Besides discoveries, some products make money. Analyze the TP entries to figure out which ones will make you money, and craft up on those. (And it’s not always the most expensive stuff. Sometimes the fine materials needed for something are very inexpensive, so the ‘less expensive’ variant of (for example) an axe will make you a profit while the more expensive one will not.
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